EDITOR'S NOTE: Bill Shurtleff (Nigeria 196366) attended Stanford University and during his junior year studied abroad for six months at Stanfords overseas campus at Beutelsbach near Stuttgart, where he met a German teacher, Herr Arno Walter Zimmermann, whom he kept in touch with after returning to Stanford.
Shurtleff finished college in 1963 and started Peace Corps training at Columbia University in New York in October of that year. On January 1, 1964 he arrived in Nigeria and was assigned to the Eastern Region where he taught physics and mathematics in Okigwi for two years.
Through letters from Shurtleff, the German professor, Herr Zimmermann, followed the Peace Corps career of his former student and was impressed with the idealism of young Americans during the 1960s, and with the Volunteers belief that they could make the world a better place in which to live. He felt this spirit was lacking among young people in post-war Germany.
After reading several of the letters, Zimmermann contacted a German publisher, Verlag Moritz Diesterweg, and suggested that it publish a collection of the letters. Zimmermann envisioned the book being used by Germans studying English in school. The publisher agreed to the project. The book was entitled A Peace Corps Year with Nigerians, and was published in 1966. It stayed in print for nearly twelve years.
The following is the last chapter in the book and tells of Shurtleffs visit to Lambarene, Gabon where he worked with Albert Schweitzer.